Question for the smithies!

[Hammock Hamster]

Hi all,

I am doing a bit of a research on traditional tools/woodworkers.
Part of this involves looking at more modern tools that were not used in times past but perhaps could have been.

What I want to know from those who have the black knowledge of hitting hot metal is would it be possible to forge a surform with just basic blacksmithing tools?

I am exploring the option that traditional woodworkers, as with most craftsmen, would have used the best tools available to them subject to location, availability and not a small amount of tradition.
From what I have been able to glean from the t'interweb surforms appeared around the 1940's/50's and though similar to a rasp (which have been around a lot longer) they cut more and more quickly with much less clogging.

I am trying to argue that had the knowledge/idea of surforms, amongst other tools, been available (and obviously dependant on whether they would be possible to make) that they would have been a valuable tool for the woodworker.

Any thought would be helpful! 🙂

Hamster


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[crosslandkelly]

I think Surform blades are punched from sheet steel then treated. I'm sure someone will be along soon with the correct answer.

 

[Hammock Hamster]

I think Surform blades are punched from sheet steel then treated. I'm sure someone will be along soon with the correct answer.

That was also my understanding.
I know many modern versions of older tools are now mass produced in similar ways that were once hand forged. It don't know enough about metal working to know what is possible.

I know rasps were made by hand but the whole thing is much thicker so presumably able to stand up to the heavier treatment involved.


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[Robson Valley]

Surely, the technology to produce sheet metals must have opened a huge door of innovation.
The urgency to roll & shape brass shell casings for the various 20th century wars has left us with a legacy of beer cans.

For me, I use a wide variety of rasps for shaping both wood and stone.
The modern inexpensive ones are all machine stitched, you can see that in the regular patterns of the teeth.

For a good deal more money, you can buy hand stitched rasps and rifflers (little rasps)
from Auroiux, Liogier and a couple of others, the names escape me (so do the spellings.)

The difference? The machine stitched ones will leave distinct tracks in your work from repeated passes.
The hand-stitched rasps and rifflers are random, they don't leave grooves.

 

[Hammock Hamster]

Surely, the technology to produce sheet metals must have opened a huge door of innovation.
The urgency to roll & shape brass shell casings for the various 20th century wars has left us with a legacy of beer cans.

For me, I use a wide variety of rasps for shaping both wood and stone.
The modern inexpensive ones are all machine stitched, you can see that in the regular patterns of the teeth.

For a good deal more money, you can buy hand stitched rasps and rifflers (little rasps)
from Auroiux, Liogier and a couple of others, the names escape me (so do the spellings.)

The difference? The machine stitched ones will leave distinct tracks in your work from repeated passes.
The hand-stitched rasps and rifflers are random, they don't leave grooves.

Absolutely agree and I think the production of items like surforms were directly linked to the available technologies, seeing how they are made it makes sense that the idea didn't come along until processes such as making sheet steel and punching it came along and we do see a lot of "new" products exclusively using this method of manufacture.

It's not so much the why weren't they used before the 50's as, like you say, technology was not really there to make them viable or worthwhile as rasps already existed but whether it would have been possible to make one with the tools and skills available to a blacksmith who would have been making the more traditional tools of the woodcarvers trade, in my mind I have a picture of a olde worlde town blacksmith who would perhaps supply the tools to the various woodworking trades such as coopers, wood turners, furniture makers, bowyers etc...
A little romanticised I know but it also begs the question of whether these trades relied on blacksmiths and cutlers or whether, as many who are trying to recreate some of the lost arts today, they dabbled in making heir own tools of the trade.

Interesting point on machine vs handmade rasps, slightly naively I would have assumed mass produced ones would have been better and more uniform but what you say makes a great deal of sense when in step back to consider it - the uniformity of production line rasps would leave distinct tool marks whereas the random patterned teeth would potentially cancel out each other's tool marks.


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[mrcharly]

The question about a surform is "why bother?"

What is a surform for? Shaping a 'random' shape, correct? Rapid removal of material that can't be done easily with a saw or a plane.

In the past you would just use an adze for that. A skilled person with an adze has no difficulty doing that shaping and leaving very few coarse tool marks. Use a spokeshave or similar to reduce the tool marks further.

Take a look in a traditional woodwork shop in a decent museum at the variety of adzes, chisels and gouges. A variety so they could get into the different places, angles and shapes. That's what they used. If you don't believe me, look up a video of the process for making a wooden barrel, look at the precision and smoothness of the finish, consider the compound shape of the staves.

 

[Leshy]

mrcharly is spot on there.

 

[Polar Bear]

It's definitely possible but I would be working closer to jewellery making than blacksmithing.

 

[Dave Budd]

i've never come across any surfoms earlier than the mid 20thC either. The punching of sheet metal was used for at least a couple of thousand years before to make things such as brass lamps.

The punching of sheet steel for the purposes of abrading something (like a surform does) was used to make cooking instruments such as graters from the mid 18th I think, but that's not my particular area. Graters for cheese are more modern (late 19 or more likely 20thC), but for things like nutmeg and other spices that were popular in the 18th maybe even 17th.

Yes it would be a blacksmiths job to do that making rather than a jeweler There were specialists in different items, so it may be that most smiths wouldn't make graters but they all could if asked to I'm sure

 

[Hammock Hamster]

Thanks all in particular mrcharly for giving me a different perspective to look at and Dave for his ever sage metal bashing advise.


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